The Handbasket: State Department set to launch ‘Office of Remigration’

The concept of remigration has explicitly neo-Nazi roots and has been popularized in Europe.

Secretary Marco Rubio’s State Department published a reorganization chart Thursday morning showing massive cuts to diplomatic offices and functions, plus a few new additions. Rubio’s department also reportedly sent the plan to Congress concurrently. What hasn’t been previously reported is the extensive 136-page document Congress received that includes the more granular details of what the reimagined department would look like— including an “Office of Remigration,” a far-right, anti-immigrant buzzword made popular in Europe for ridding the country of migrants.

Arguably the most alarming piece of the report comes in the section for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). The report states that PRM will be “substantially reorganized” and that a number of new offices will be created as part of the absorption of USAID. There will be three new offices under the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Migration Matters, “to shift focus towards supporting the Administration’s efforts to return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status.” 

One such office will be the Office of Remigration (REM), which will “provide a policy platform for interagency coordination with DHS and other agencies on removals/repatriations, and for intra-agency policy work to advance the President’s immigration agenda.” There will also be offices of International Migration/Repatriation and Refugee Processing.

Coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) surprised one State Department employee I spoke to who said the people they’ve known to work in PRM are “pretty much the opposite” of those who work for DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

While these plans align with Trump’s open objective of expelling as many migrants from the United States as possible, the use of the word “remigration” is particularly striking as it’s widely used by far-right extremists in Europe. 

“All of it is pretty awful with some pieces that definitely violate existing law and treaties,” a person who works closely with the State Department told The Handbasket. “But institutionalizing neo-Nazi theory as an office in the State Department is the most blatantly horrifying.”

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/state-department-office-of-remigration

Wired: The Trump Administration Wants to Create an ‘Office of Remigration’

“Remigration”—a far-right European plan to expel minorities and immigrants from Western nations—may soon have a dedicated office following a Trump administration reorganization of the State Department.

As part of a sweeping reorganization of the State Department, the Trump administration is creating an Office of Remigration. Remigration is an immigration policy embraced by extremists that calls for the removal of all migrants—including “non-assimilated” citizens—with the goal of creating white ethnostates in Western countries.

The details of the plan are contained in a 136-page notification document sent by the State Department to six Congressional commitees—including the House Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Committees and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—for approval by July 1, according to a copy reviewed by WIRED.

“The Office of Remigration will serve as the [Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration]’s hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking,” the document reads. “It will provide a policy platform for interagency coordination with DHS and other agencies on removals/repatriations, and “for intra-agency policy work to advance the President’s immigration agenda.”

The notification says that the Office of Remigration “will also actively facilitate the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status,” which is a key aim of remigration ideology.

There are three phases to “remigration”:

On [Martin Sellner’s] site, he lays out a three-phase plan to implement remigration. The first phase, dubbed the “Immediate Stabilization of Asylum Chaos,” has striking similarities to Trump’s current immigration policies.

The second phase of Sellner’s plan, following the initial removal of undocumented immigrants, includes the removal of “migrants who entered the country legally and have a residence/work permit, or temporary visa, but are an economical, criminal or cultural burden.”

The final phase targets citizens who are seen as “non assimilated,”and it involves passing laws to “target parallel societies with economic and cultural pressure” and entice citizens to migrate abroad with the use of loans, payments, and other assistance. The plan, Sellner claims, will allow “the wounds of multiculturalism to heal.”

This is like Hitler’s Mein Kampf, all laid out in writing and scarcely anybody is paying attention.

https://www.wired.com/story/trump-office-remigration-state-department-europe-far-right